Red Moon

by Kim Stanley Robinson

America is more of a one-party state than China. It’s entirely ruled by the market. Actually the market is the only party in the world now, or it wants to be. So every nation has to deal with that in its own way.”

“Your parties are just factions. That’s why people in your country are so angry. They can see it’s just one party, and one-party states are always corrupt. Polyarchies are better because power gets distributed to various groups. They’re inefficient and messy, with lots of turf battles, but that’s the cost of distributing power. It’s better than concentrated power.”